The invention relates to a process for producing cigarette packs during a changeover of the pack contents and/or of the packaging material with the aid of at least one packaging machinexe2x80x94packerxe2x80x94to which cigarettes and packaging material are fed as a continuous material web and/or as blanks.
In the cigarette industry, there is an increasing need for carrying out, in a short period of time, a changeover of the pack contents, that is to say of the cigarettes and/or of the packaging material in the same production installation. This product or brand changeover may concern all the product features of the packs, that is to say the cigarettes as well as the packaging material in its entirety.
Up until now, the procedure has been such that, for a product changeover, the packaging machine or the entire production installation (line) is brought to a standstill following completion of the production of a certain brand. The material present in the installation, including the cigarettes which have been processed up to this point, is removed by hand and disposed of as waste. Thereafter, the new material is installed and the packaging machine or line is set in operation again with the new cigarettes and/or the new packaging material.
The object of the invention is to carry out the product or brand changeover during the production of cigarette packs such that the changeover only results in small production losses.
In order to achieve this object, the process according to the invention is characterized by the following features:
a) upon initiation of a xe2x80x9cproduct changeoverxe2x80x9d operating phase, the (residual) quantity of previous cigarettesxe2x80x94old cigarettesxe2x80x94and/or previous packaging materialxe2x80x94old materialxe2x80x94which is still to be processed is determined,
b) the feed of old cigarettes and/or old material to the packaging machine is limited to the (residual) quantity which is still to be processed,
c) the new cigarettes that are to be packagedxe2x80x94new cigarettesxe2x80x94and/or the new packaging material which is to be processedxe2x80x94new materialxe2x80x94are/is provided for feeding to the packaging machine following the old cigarettes and/or the old material,
d) the last cigarette pack with the old cigarettes and/or the old materialxe2x80x94old packxe2x80x94and/or the first cigarette pack with the new cigarettes and/or the new materialxe2x80x94new packxe2x80x94are/is identified,
e) the production of the new packs follows the production of the old packs without interruption.
A special feature of the invention is that, during a changeover, continuous material of the currently produced cigarette packs is connected by a so-called splice to the continuous material of the new pack which is to be produced. In the process according to the invention, the procedure is such that the material-web connection is assigned to a cigarette pack which can be identified and separated out, in particular to a multipack which can be separated out. This avoids the situation where the old material has to be removed from the movement paths and the new material has to be threaded in laboriously.
In order to realize the invention, the procedure is such that the packaging machine or the installation is emptied of the old packs to the extent where a residual quantity of cigarette packs which is necessary for processing purposes is left behind in individual subassemblies of the installation. The number of this residual stock of old packs is known. This makes it possible to determine the position of the web connection (splice) such that in particular the last old pack has the connecting location and that in particular the last multipack with the old packs contains all the web connections. This cigarette multipack is then separated out.